KUCHING, Dec 5: Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) president Voon Lee Shan opines that Sarawak should implement the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) as much as possible first and solve any hitches later.
From a legal perspective, he concurred with the opinion of the former Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Parliament and Law), Dato Sri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, as reported by the media today, that direct implementation of MA63 without having an agreement from the Cabinet Committee could make any real changes in restoring the rights of the Borneo States.
“But from a political point of view, it is better to grab what we can first and the rest where there are hitches, solve them later. Otherwise, there will be no end to the matter if things proceed by committees and negotiations for an agreement.
“The committees or negotiations had been there at least since Pakatan Harapan (PH) was the government. There will be nothing to prevent the federal government, which is controlled by Malaya, from dragging their feet and say ‘the recovery of nation’s economy takes precedence’,” he said in a statement today.
Voon mentioned that Wan Junaidi has also reportedly expressed concern over the idea of Putrajaya simply giving out any figure without taking into account the financial position of the federal government.
“Why should we care about the financial position of the federal government? Our home comes first. We should care not the federal government has no money after we can take what we can.
“They (Malaya) had taken what was ours for the past 60 years, and by taking as much as we can, we cannot say we are heartless to them. They spoilt the economy, created debts, abused their positions and committed fraud and financial crimes, but why should Sabahans and Sarawakians be asked to pay for these?
“At the same time, while restoring or taking back as much as we could, we must push to say MA63 is invalid or even if MA63 is valid, all terms therein are non-negotiable but to persist what had been ‘robbed politically’ by way of MA63 should be fully restored to Sarawak within the shortest span of time and without any delay,” he added. — DayakDaily
